Charles Q. Choi

The explosion likely occurred within a dense shell of matter shed by a companion star.

Why is Mars dry? Water might escape the atmosphere more effectively than previously thought, potentially helping to explain how the Red Planet lost its vast oceans.

Spacecraft could fly to distant stars using sails with surfaces similar to those of CDs and DVDs to help them stay centered on laser beams, a new study finds.

Venus may still harbor active volcanoes, with eruptions taking place as recently as a few years ago, a new study finds.

Water appears both common and unexpectedly scarce in exoplanets — many distant worlds have it, but less of it than predicted, a new study finds.

The first image of a black hole, previously thought nigh impossible to capture, was named the top scientific breakthrough of 2019 by the journal Science.

For the first time, astronomers have gotten an up-close view of eruptions from an asteroid, shedding light on what might drive such explosions.

Gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful kinds of explosions known in the universe, can generate even more energetic light beams than astronomers previously realized, according to a set of new studies.

The world's first weather satellite, TIROS-1, launched 50 years ago,and changed the world.

A giant planet wildly careening around a star may not prevent an Earth-size planet from staying in a stable orbit friendly to life as we know it, a new study finds.

When it comes to the mystery behind what causes jets of plasma that regularly erupt from the sun, clues have now emerged suggesting magnetic clashes on the surface of the sun may be the culprits.

"Star Wars' has had a history of using — and, many would say, misusing — the word "parsec."

This one involved the Milky Way's supermassive black hole.

For the first time, scientists have detected a newly born heavy element in space, forged in the aftermath of a collision between a pair of dead stars known as neutron stars.

Thousands of planets may form and orbit around the kind of supermassive black holes found in the cores of most, if not all, galaxies, a new study finds.

Giant alien worlds with searing, close orbits to their host stars can inflate like balloons. Now astronomers have discovered one so puffy that it is one of the least dense planets ever discovered.

By analyzing the disintegrated remains of distant worlds consumed by their stars, a new study found that at least some rocky exoplanets may have interiors similar to those of Earth and Mars.

New infrared cameras and gel-based thrusters just might help future satellites dodge space debris, a new study finds.

The most magnetic stars may have their origins in merging stars, a new study finds.

NGTS-10b is a very weird world.

The faintly glowing wisps of gas that make up the intergalactic filaments of a universe-spanning cosmic web may have finally been detected for the first time, a new study reports.

Alien worlds resembling giant eyeballs might be able to host life, but they may not be as common as previously suggested, a new study finds.

Astronomers have discovered a giant, Jupiter-like planet in an unexpected location, and it's orbiting a small, nearby red dwarf star, a new study finds.

More mysteriously dimming stars have been spotted.

What might it take to feed a million people on Mars? Lab-grown meat, tunnel-grown crops and cricket farms, a new study finds.